


Laughter Lines / Oblivion

by faithsedge



Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, F/M, just pain honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29768712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithsedge/pseuds/faithsedge
Summary: Rose chooses not to turn. Decades later she's dying, and Nate visits her.
Relationships: Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell, Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	1. Part 1

it has been just over thirty years and five months since he has seen her—since he has held her, since he has told her all the things he had told no other. thirty years, five months, and thirteen days.

he has been counting.

her picture still stands in an ornate frame on the nightstand beside his bed, he has another in his wallet, and another in his head. he is in a few of them, and perpetually in the one inside his head, rose is always there, as if she had never left—as if _he_ had never left. as if he had never left wayhaven, had never left the country, had never left her standing, _alone_.

but back then he knew it had to happen, he knew it was futile to object. the bed was made, he had to lie in it, even when she was not on the other side.

even now he repeats it in his head, _this is how it is going to be._

the denial, and all that it encompassed, (the long sleepless nights, that seem so much longer without her company, and the darker days when everything feels like river with no destination) had faded a long time ago.

“are you nervous?” his old friend asks him, hands clasped behind his back, his frown, more damning than usual.

there’s a knot in his throat, he’s not sure he can speak, and when he does, “i imagine we all are.” a non-answer, he spares his oldest friend the woes of his vulnerability, but adam is not easily fooled, least of all by nate. still, he does not pry, an action adam feels confident in making; his friend needs space, and time to come to terms (and adam knows, better than most, _far_ better than most, that there will be plenty).

and even then, time cannot heal all wounds, and not this one. most definitely not this one. but in time, adam knows, that the memory of rose, though distant, will be pleasant. her smile, but a whisper in their minds, will be a fleeting moment of happiness in an otherwise dreary existence. and that alone, is worth saying goodbye for.

“she was—“ and then he makes a mistake.

“don’t,”—nate droops his head, long, grown out hair falling in his face, and he pinches the bridge of his nose, so not to let any tears fall, but by god, a few do so he turns his back to his friend (as best as he can in a moving vehicle), and he tries his best not heave, but he’s almost breaking—“she’s not _gone_ yet.”

—all from a simple mistake of a tense. a slip up.

“i know, and i am sorry.” adam is visibly tense, shoulders bunched up, and god awfully sorry for his words, so he tends to the sitaution, hoping to bring some comfort, a change of subject.

“have you thought about what you will say to her?”

and this, this question, pulls at nate, even in his despair, tucked so deeply in a pocket of his own remorseful world, he is drawn out. what will he say to her? what could he possibly say? that would ease her, and both him in one fell swoop of words?

he has always been so well-spoken, words coming easy to his lips, he could wrap around phrases— _oh_ , the things he used to say to her. he remembers them, he remembers her face, and her blush, and her tears, and her smile.

and there are... there are many things he will say to her, so many he thinks, that he is not sure he will remember them all; that once the words start leaving his lips, they will tie his tongue in a knot and dribble down his chin. he will leave a damn mess, that’s for sure—but it is what he will say to her, in his own hasty way, that has him on the edge of collapse in the back of the agency vehicle. what to say, and what to say first... he realizes, has realized, he does not have all the time in the world—she has made sure of that, and he cannot fault her, cannot find it in him to fault her. perhaps this is easier for her, better for her, but harder still all the same.

it is fairytale story come to a close, a fairytale story with an ending—she can have that much, something nate has never come so close to grasp. so, despite the heavy lump in his throat, the tears held barely at bay by the thinnest of strong wills, he manages a smile. she will have known love, and he is responsible for that.

but still, he is sure he will be a disappointment (and perhaps that is the irony of the situation; a man still in his prime, yet 300 odd years old will be the disappointment).

he can not afford to mess this up.

“yes, i suppose i have.” he sniffles, and he brushes back a few strands of dark hair. and even this action, in its irrelevance, has his mind drifting; back to her hair, and the scent of it (a gentle mint and honey) dark and light, and then light, and then dark again, and how, she always forgot to pull it back with the hair ties she never had, and he would have to brush the strands behind her ears. and he would always use the action has an excuse to run his hands on the soft of her cheek, palm resting so gently on the pale, and pink skin.

and he remembers, how she would always crinkle inwards, so unused to the touch, but she would ask him to do it again, and he remembers how she told him she always forgot those hair ties on purpose because it gave him an excuse to hold her near. he remembers laughing, and joy. he remembers so much joy.

and that’s the thing, he remembers nothing but joy.

it has been thirty years, five months, and thirteen days.

thirty years, five months, and thirteen days since he reluctantly left her arms, packing his things and saying goodbye.

and he knew he could not stay, not then. not forever, but it did not stop him from hoping that could, it did not stop him from thinking it _would_ happen. but he knows now, a little older and a little wiser (and he thinks, perhaps he did not want to know, his endless quest, and ceaseless hunger for knowledge... he did not want to be right about this—but he was and he is. she is not forever guaranteed, she never was).

it’s dark when the agency vehicle (black in color and relatively unassuming, a standard suv) pulls in to the only hospital in wayhaven. they figure, all of them, the team, together (because she is the rallying point, when she calls—or does not—they answer, they _always_ answer) that visiting a town they once were stationed in, in broad daylight is not a very tactful idea.

the wheels come to a stop, nate lurches an inch forward, and so does his heart inside his chest.

she is inside, and even from here he can hear her faint, slow heartbeat. half of his heart, is in there, _dying_.

and surely he will die with it. that would be enough.


	2. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok - sorry for the change in style (i.e. the capitalization of this chapter). I've decided my all lower case thing is getting old :(   
> and also sorry for posting both chapters together? im not sure if that's spamming the tags but if it is ill make sure not to do it again!!  
> anyways ! thank you for checking this work out!! i am @nathanielseawell on tumblr!!

_“You haven’t said a word.” His bottom lip catches in between his teeth, soft, and chasing the taste of her. Still stuck to the quivering, the faint strawberry of her chapstick._

_She refuses to look at him._

_“There’s not much to say.” She doesn’t say, there is only one thing left. There is only goodbye, and the horizon without you in it._

_She thinks, perhaps, if she doesn’t say it, then it will never happen. That time could stop, for her, for them; that time owes her that much compassion. She deserves it. After everything, she deserves it._

_But she’s made her bed. She has to lie in it.  
  
“I cherished it, you know.”  
  
_

_Her facade cracks. Fingers pick at her own skin, a tremor rumbling deep in her stomach spreads throughout her limbs, paralyzing her within. Her blood turns ice-cold, and her veins cripple. “Don’t do that…” She lets out a ragged breath. “Don’t speak like it is over.”_

_He grimaces; a bad choice of words, perhaps._

_“It isn’t, not completely.” Beside her, his hand falls into her own. “Not when you beat proudly on in my chest. With every breath I take, you make your presence known. I carry you with me everywhere I go.”  
  
She laughs. She laughs despite it all. She laughs in spite of it all. _

_“It’s your words I will miss most. You fill me with a language of your own.”_

_“You were always the only one worth writing for.”_

_His eyes meet briefly with her own, and a dam breaks within him. He twists to meet her face. Eyes wide, and lips parted, she watches. She watches every flicker of his gaze. “I will miss every color of yours.” Fingers tenderly brush away brown strands of hair speckled with grey, and they linger on her skin. They mold into the shape of her cheekbones, memorizing with touch, ‘til the movement is muscle memory._

_“I will miss how we have loved, and how we have lived.”_

_He manages an uneasy smile, forced and yet not. The curves of his lips betray the feeling of hope in the pits of his stomach. And he finds that it is pain and it is joy. He can only want for her. And that pains him, but--_

_Let me hurt, he thinks, let me hurt, for just tonight, for the last ‘just tonight.’_

_And it is falling, and falling. It is falling, how his forehead falls on her own, how she eases into his touch, and tips forward on her toes. “I have lived.”  
  
“Centuries I have spent, alive”--his eyelids flutter shut--”but I have not lived until I met you.”_

_It’s your words I will miss most._

_“And I will live even still.”_

_You were the birth of my soul. You colored my soul.  
  
“You never could just say ‘I love you,’” she echoes._

_“Three words are not enough to encapsulate just how much I do.”  
_

_Gentle lips capture hers, needy, yet reserved. It pains him to pull away._

_“I hope that you live.” She feels his breath on her skin, lips so close, noses pressing, and she almost closes the gap once more--_

_But she bites her tongue, and she controls the urge (just as she always has). It is hard enough to say goodbye already, and his closeness is not making it any easier.  
  
Still, he does not stop. The words bubble over, inch to the top and spill from his tongue. “And I hope that you love.”  
  
She doesn’t tell him that she has, she has lived. That her eyes have changed. That everything has blossomed in front of her; that she has bloomed in his presence. She loves, and she loves and she loves. And she smiles, and she sees the sun. _

_She sees the ocean, and she sees the sky, and she sees the high-rises. And she sees it all as it is painted before her. She sees a smile in her stead._

_And she has known love._

_And she can recognize it._

_But,_

_The moment breaks quickly with an alert on Nate’s phone, and it pulls him away._

_His feet rock on his heels, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans._

_He takes a tentative step backwards, and then forward through the threshold of the door. The moon curls forward, it shines through the window of her apartment. The same apartment. Familiar, and filled with years of love. But a cloud passes over, and the love lingers like dust on the surfaces of their shoulders._

_When he passes through, everything flickers out._

_  
The lights flicker out in her heart, no warm yellow glow left to hold. Only to reminisce, only to trace, the lines of the light where they used to exist._

_It is not so familiar anymore._

_And yet--_

_He listens to her heartbeat as he closes the door._

She sounds just as he remembers, though slightly arrhythmic. The occasional out of tempo beat of her heart. And the occasional silence--those moments send shooting pains to his mind. They almost stop him in his tracks as he ascends the flight of stairs to the corridor where her room is. 

With every footstep her heart beats louder, drowning out Adam’s silence behind him. Though he can feel every jitter, every dart of Felix’s sad eyes, and Mason’s scowl-turned-frown. 

And then--

Her room.

His hand hesitates on the doorknob, Adam’s resting over gently. Nate turns his head to face him. “We don’t have to do this.”  
  
“I need to see her before…” He falters. 

There is an intense amount of understanding in Adam’s voice when he says, “I know.” 

His hand turns the knob, and he pushes the door open. 

When he sees her--

(And he is glad he does not have to breathe, because he thinks his lungs might collapse otherwise.)

\--When he sees her, again, for the first time in years, he notices the lines wrinkling her face; lines he has not memorized, but lines he will memorize (--if only a brief study--), and lines of a life well-lived.

And it pushes the corners of his lips, it tugs a smile from within him. He can picture the sun on her skin, and the salt on her lips, and every smile he has missed. 

When he sees her, he sees the pleasant curls of her now grey hair running across her forehead. If she is in pain he doesn’t see it. 

But from her bed, her older hands grip the edge. “You don’t look a day over three-hundred.”

Nate’s head drops, and he lets out a breathy chuckle. “Rose.”

“That is still my name… I hope.” He looks at her again, stunned by her resilience but not by her wit. She always had a way of making him laugh, especially when he shouldn’t. He will always remember that. 

And just like when they first met, a silvery shroud of distance fell over them. A schism, an impossible divide of unspoken words and dismissive hands. But they crossed it once, they collapsed into each other, crossed lines and found lips attached to lips and limbs tangled with limbs. They fell in love once. 

He inches forward, uncertain, and yet the most certain he’s ever been (and he pretends not to hear the unsteady beeping of the machine next to her bed).

_Muscle memory_ , he thinks. _Falling in love with her is muscle memory._

“You look…” 

When he lingers too long she speaks for him, “Old?”

“You look like laughter is your second language.” He pulls the chair near the wall over to the edge of her bed and sinks heavily into it.

She gingerly takes his hand. “And you look like you haven’t smiled naturally in ages.”

“You’ve already remedied that,” he whispers, and grips her hand, firm but soft, like he needs it for support. “Do you have any stories for me?” 

“For you; always.” 

Rose ushers the rest of the team further inside the small hospital room. The dawn peaks in through the blinds, and fills the room with magic. A golden glow of family at her side. And it is all she could ask for, all she could ever ask for. 

Time is an inevitable thing, and she had filled it with every adventure she could chase. Though never married, never a parent, she took every second she got, and she lived--she lived vigorously and with abandon. 

_And it is all he could ask for, all he could ever ask for._

He holds her hand, listening as her words diminish, decrescendo in her tragic symphony. 

He holds her hand even when the erratic beeping grows stronger and her pulse grows weaker. The faint trace of a tear falls down his cheeks and collects at his chin.

She has lived, and he has witnessed it. He has loved her, once and twice, falling into her orbit, washing up in her tide. 

He can feel hands ripping him away, the faint consistent beep, the callings of the doctors, and the ‘time of death’ muttered from their lips. He lets them pull him down; his team holds him up. 

And he thinks, he thinks about the ‘goodbyes’ never spoken, the inevitable finally written. He finds himself lost, lost for his good words, the ones she loved. 

But he chuckles, and he closes his eyes, pulling from his lips a tender, and fervent (and narratively fitting, and almost ironic, and everything he never said), “Goodbye.”

And--

“ _I love you._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> hi! ty for reading!! i am @nathanielseawell on tumblr!! <3333


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